


Law and Psychological Disorder

by Decepticonsensual



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 13:42:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13249416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/pseuds/Decepticonsensual
Summary: In the post-war Cybertronian criminal justice system, under-the-radar weapons smuggling is considered especially heinous.  In Iacon, the people are represented by two separate but equally important cops:  the excitable corpse-obsessed detective with his foot perpetually in his mouth, and the long-suffering psychiatrist who just wants to build his model ships in peace.These are their stories.*doink doink*





	Law and Psychological Disorder

**Author's Note:**

> The timeline is deliberately vague here - this could take place during Megatron's trial, after the current Lost Light series, or in an alternate universe. Up to you! Warnings: Some mild violence, and brief mention of the Destroyer of Worlds. :)

“That’s it.  Exactly like that.  Rung, you’re a natural.”

 

Rung, perched at a table carefully positioned for its panoramic view of the cafe, frowned momentarily and rested his chin in his hand so he could speak into the special comm unit they’d installed in his other thumb.  “Nightbeat, you just told me to, and I quote, ‘sit at that table and fiddle with a model ship like a friendless nerd’.”

 

“And you’re so good at it!”

 

There was a brief burst of static over the comm as Rung’s forehead made contact with the table.

 

“Now, the smuggling ring’s contact is apparently a new buyer, which, if I’m right – and we both know I am – means he’s that much more likely to make a mistake.  I know you don’t have my training, Rung, but I’ll need you to keep your optics peeled for -”

 

“A new buyer,” Rung interrupted softly.  “So, he might be quite nervous, do you think?”

 

Nightbeat sounded a bit frazzled when he replied, as if his train of thought had been derailed.  “I suppose?  Yes.”

 

“Ten o’clock, the first of the booths along the far wall.  He’s been gulping his engex much too quickly.”  Rung angled the model ship so that one of its aft thrusters – the one with the tiny camera inside – was pointed at the mech in question.

 

“So have most of the mechs in there; it’s a mine workers’ bar, Rung, when they get off shift they all drink like it’s their second job.”

 

“Not like this.  He’s taking sips automatically, like a nervous tic.”

 

“Maybe he’s waiting for his date to turn up.”

 

“I doubt it.  His plating is covered in dust.  Who wouldn’t go to the washracks before a date?  Or, for that matter, a business meeting, or seeing an old friend – anything that might make him this nervous? No, the only reason you’d come to an important appointment caked in dirt is if you’re trying to blend into a miners’ bar.”

 

Nightbeat suddenly gasped down the line.  “Frag, you’re right.  The _patterns_  of the dirt, they’re all wrong.  Everyone else in there has it mostly around their joints, and worse on the arms; you know, how you’d look after shifting ore all day.  That guy looks like he just picked up a handful of soil and smeared it over himself.”

 

Rung took another look at the mech’s dirty plating.  “Oh, my!  Well spotted, Nightbeat!”

 

“And you,” came Nightbeat’s voice down the line, those two words warming Rung’s spark more than they had any right to.

 

That is, until the mech looked up and saw Rung staring at him.

 

“He’s headed out the back!” Rung blurted hastily as their suspect bolted for the service entrance.  

 

***

 

Nightbeat grinned wolfishly and sprinted for the edge of the rooftop, hurling himself into thin air and descending like the wrath of Primus on the suspect below.

 

“Stop! You’re under arrest!”

 

Unfortunately, the roof was quite low, so he didn’t quite have enough momentum for the impact to knock the mech out cold, and the guy was built like – or forged like, Nightbeat didn’t judge – a tank.  In fact, judging from the treads, which were now whirring angrily, he probably  _was_ a tank.  Nightbeat could do little more than wrap himself around the suspect’s upper body and hold on as the mech attempted to smash him into nearby walls.  “Under Section 7.12 of the Tyrest Accord,” Nightbeat tried, locking an arm around the mech’s throat even as he was almost shaken off, “you have the – oof! - you have the right to –  _owwww –_  you have -”

 

“You’re not a criminal.”

 

The words were spoken mildly, and yet they seemed to echo in the alleyway.  Nightbeat slumped strutlessly against the suspect’s back as the mech stopped his rampage and turned.

 

Rung had his hands up soothingly, the model ship placed by his feet.  “I just thought you should know.  If you stop, right now, you still haven’t committed any crime.  You can walk away.”

 

Nightbeat rallied enough to let out an outraged squawk at this offer to throw away their best lead.  Rung gave him a quelling look.

 

Then he turned his optics back to the suspect, and his tone turned even gentler.  “Decepticon?”  Long, delicate fingers gestured to the insignia on the mech’s chest.

 

“Damn right – Autobot scum,” the mech snarled.

 

“Then I think I understand.  You didn’t give up the badge, so you’re relegated to living in the slums, your fuel rations restricted.  I’m sure that when the opportunity to smuggle weapons arose, it looked like an escape.  But you don’t want to do this.  Anyone can see that in your face.”  Nightbeat mouthed  _I couldn’t._ Rung ignored him.  “Selling to other Decepticons is one thing, but do you really want to be doing business with the likes of the Black Box Consortia?  You know what they do to Cybertronians.”

 

Nightbeat made an abrupt and undignified descent when the mech’s shoulders slumped, accidentally dislodging him in the process.

 

“I never even wanted to sell weapons in the first place,” the mech murmured.  “I’m a musician, you know?  But there’s no work for people like me except shovelling metal and hauling boxes for a couple of cubes a day, and there’s not even much of that.  Four million years of war, and it – it’s like nothing’s changed.”

 

“We have friends in the music business.  Friends who won’t discriminate.  We can help you,” Rung said, stretching out his hand.

 

Nightbeat stepped between the suspect and Rung.  “If you do something for us.”

 

***

 

In the end, the sting went off even better than they’d hoped.

 

Thanks to the assistance of Rung and Nightbeat’s new friend (whose name turned out to be Cutterwing), the enforcers picked up twenty members of an Iacon-based smuggling ring, along with three agents of the BBC operating illicitly on Cybertron. They nabbed Cutterwing, as well, of course – it would be suspicious not to – but the prison transport carrying him went mysteriously astray in the outskirts of the city, and Cutterwing’s “escape” was recorded and then quietly dropped.  And Rung, true to his promise, made a phone call.

 

Nautica didn’t even need Rung’s gentle bribe of a stack of old mystery novels from one of Iacon’s now-burgeoning second-hand bookshops – personally vetted by Nightbeat, who had excellent taste in fictional puzzles – before she agreed.  (Rung sent them anyway; she’d enjoy them.)  In short order, Nautica had called Windblade, and Windblade had dropped by to have a word with Blurr, and now Rung and Nightbeat were sitting at a table in the back of Maccadam’s, sipping their drinks as they watched Cutterwing on stage, riffing off of Jazz’s thrumming bassline.  Rung didn’t have any particular expertise in music, but the crowd nearer the stage was rapt, and Jazz himself was grinning as he and Cutterwing improvised back and forth.

 

“It’s good to see him doing so well,” Rung observed.  Nightbeat scoffed, and Rung smiled in response.  “I know – detection isn’t therapy.  But you must find it a  _bit_ satisfying, or you wouldn’t be here.”

 

“Sure, the only reason I’m in the one decent bar in the city, where I’ve been going for  _five million years_ , is to check in on Decepticons miscreants.”  But Nightbeat didn’t take his optics off the stage.

 

Rung hid his smile behind his hand, this time, and eyed his glass of energon, wondering whether he wanted to bother getting up to ask for a curly straw.


End file.
